On 6 May 2025, during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump announced that the United States would cease its aerial bombardment of Houthi positions in Yemen, citing messages from the group expressing a desire to end hostilities.
This decision came just 52 days after the campaign began on 15 March 2025, in response to Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandab Strait, actions the group claimed were in solidarity with Gaza.
This sudden shift raises several questions about the opaque nature of the US campaign in Yemen. What were the true objectives of the military operation? Were they achieved? Why did the United States abruptly terminate its campaign? What consequences will this ceasefire have for both Washington and the Houthis? How sustainable is this agreement?
Politically, there is little doubt that Washington has managed to extract an important concession from the Houthis: a pledge not to target international shipping in the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandab, particularly vessels linked to the United States.
On 6 May, Omani Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Al-Busaidi confirmed to the press that an agreement had been brokered between Washington and the Houthi authorities in Sanaa, under which neither side would engage the other militarily, including by targeting American ships.
This diplomatic breakthrough eluded the Biden administration’s year-long military campaign from 12 January 2024 to 17 January 2025. Nor was it achieved by the international maritime coalition Operation Prosperity Guardian, a 12-nation alliance formed under US leadership in December 2023 to secure commercial shipping routes.
The recent agreement was finalized after 52 days of sustained US strikes intended to end Houthi attacks and restore safe passage in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Bab El-Mandab.
The official narrative does not fully explain the sudden end to hostilities. Throughout Operation Iron Knight, the US carried out approximately 890 airstrikes on Houthi military targets, inflicting considerable, but far from decisive, damage.
American warplanes targeted arms depots, missile launch sites, drone hangars, and critical infrastructure, including the strategic ports of Hudaydah and Ras Isa.
The strikes focused on Houthi strongholds in Sanaa, Saada, and surrounding areas, extending to provinces such as Hudaydah, Marib, Al-Jawf, Amran, Al-Bayda, Hajjah, Dhamar, Ibb, Taiz, and Al-Mahwit.
The island of Kamaran, located in the Red Sea off the Hudaydah coast, was bombed 56 times. These raids struck drone platforms, weapons caches, sea mine storage, and sites believed to house electronic surveillance and jamming equipment.
Yet despite the scale of these operations, the US campaign fell short of dismantling the Houthis' military capabilities for several reasons.
First, American intelligence on the ground proved insufficient. Second, Yemen’s mountainous terrain and remote military installations rendered precision targeting extremely difficult. Third, the Houthis demonstrated a strategic adaptability, learning from Hezbollah’s past experiences by upgrading their communication systems, securing operational secrecy, and decentralizing command structures.
The group’s leadership restructured internal coordination mechanisms — military, security, and operational — and ensured their protection through clandestine measures.
Additionally, the Houthis were able to inflict notable damage on US forces. They downed seven drones and two F-18 fighter jets, attacked the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, and launched around 20 further assaults on ships in the Red Sea.
The campaign proved costly for Washington economically. The combined cost of military operations and the disruption of maritime traffic exceeded $3 billion, with direct military expenditures alone surpassing $1 billion.
The Houthis also leveraged effective air defences, shrouded in ambiguity and aided by foreign actors, to pose credible threats to US aircraft.
According to Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, the American strikes had a negligible impact on the group’s operational strength.
Mahdi Al-Mashat, head of the Houthi political council, estimated that less than one percent of the group’s military capacity was damaged.
Internally, the Houthis activated their tribal honour pact to prevent fragmentation and reinforce cohesion on the home front.
The cessation of US hostilities will have far-reaching implications. For the Houthis, the agreement is being framed as a political victory.
The group will likely use this narrative to consolidate its authority in Yemen and rebuild its military infrastructure.
The truce also constitutes a tacit US acknowledgement of the Houthis' political legitimacy — remarkable, considering Washington had labelled the group a terrorist organisation just two months earlier.
This opens new avenues for Houthi diplomacy, particularly with Iran and the US.
The Houthis are expected to leverage this diplomatic opening to replenish their arsenal, with backing from regional allies like Tehran. In the context of the broader Axis of Resistance, the agreement may also reestablish the Houthis as a key regional player, particularly after Hezbollah’s setbacks in Lebanon, the collapse of the Syrian regime, and attempts to neutralize Iraqi militias.
For Washington, the agreement reflects a broader recalibration of US foreign policy. It aligns with President Trump’s broader strategy of avoiding protracted military entanglements, as seen in his approach to the Ukraine and Indo-Pacific wars.
It also supports his intent to reduce the US military footprint in Iraq and Syria.
From a diplomatic standpoint, the agreement enhances Washington’s credibility in ongoing talks with Iran, signalling goodwill and a willingness to de-escalate. It reduces the risk of retaliatory action by Iran’s regional proxies and insulates US interests from wider confrontation.
By disengaging from a potentially lengthy and costly conflict with the Houthis, Washington preserves its strategic flexibility and avoids being drawn into a proxy war benefiting its adversaries.
The Houthis now represent a valuable bargaining chip for Washington, which it could use in future negotiations with Tehran or strategic dialogues with Saudi Arabia.
The accord also immediately improves maritime security in the Red Sea and the Arabian Seas. The cessation of attacks will allow commercial shipping to resume along previously threatened routes, including the Bab El-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden.
If both parties adhere to the agreement, it will restore confidence in maritime trade and alleviate the immense financial pressure on regional economies. In Egypt alone, the Suez Canal reportedly suffered $6 billion in losses due to Houthi disruptions.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government's situation remains unchanged. Divided and politically marginalized, it will continue to wait for external developments that may shift the balance of power domestically.
Meanwhile, the agreement reinforces Iran and Saudi Arabia's respective strategies.
Iran will likely retain the Houthis as a strategic asset to pressure the US and Gulf states. Saudi Arabia is expected to pursue quiet diplomacy, as it did with its overtures to the Houthis in March 2022.
Whether this diplomatic balancing act can contain the broader regional rivalries remains to be seen.
*The writer is an Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies researcher.
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